Fog Dude

On 9/12/2022 at 5:53 PM, RoryFice said:

Also, top scorer?!?!? Can we just scrap picking EPL crap and focus on Ligue Un etc every week?

Ha, nice try. As I said, you were only joint top scorer with Stinky Dad and I doubt you'd do that well if every card was just full of French games. For this week, though, it's a case of thank goodness for la République across the water. 

Anyway, apologies for lateness. Not feeling great and the laptop I make the update from has been extra chronically slow today. Here's the table update as promised. Defending champion MVP RULZ has taken the lead again after drawing level on points with me. The tie-breakers, before we start relying on alphabetical order, are most exact scores and then fewest points accrued from bonuses. The average score was just 0.7 lower with 2 games and no D2D than it was the previous time with 10 games and a D2D. 

Of the people who scored zero, one put his guesses in a format that would be very confusing if somebody were to do it with a full card, whilst the other picked late. Not much to say about the matches other than that they both had the same scoreline, with a narrow home win for Marseille proving easier to foresee than a reverse on the road for Lyon.

=== 

On the Fantasy League side of things, make sure not to have too many players from Brighton, Palace, Man U, Leeds, Chelsea or Liverpool as they all definitely don't have a game this weekend anymore. Like Nicko pointed out, it might be time for the Free Hit or first Wildcard if you haven't used it up already.

For those of us who usually 'backload' their chips as much as possible, keep in mind that the first Wildcard needs to be used up before the World Cup starts else it's lost forever, so this round might be as good a time as any.

===

Back to the Predictions League, here are the fixtures for the opening round of FPL Cup matches. I'll put them into the opening post in a week's time: 

GROUP A        
RoryFice v Fatty Facesitter
Stinky Dad v TildeGuy~!
        
GROUP B        
MVP RULZ v Fog Dude
seph v Shy Dad
        
Cross-pool play        
ultimo the great v Vegeta
 

The 'cross-pool' clash is an idea borrowed from some rugby union tournaments and also American football (although I'm assured the out-of-division NFL games aren't actually assigned at random) that helps to keep things interesting. We haven't been able to do it fairly in a 3x3 group format these past couple of seasons, so I'm glad we're up to a complement of 10 players again now.

There won't be much jeopardy or tension in the group stage, as after 25 matches only 2 people will be eliminated. Then in the spring the Cup competition actually becomes the knockout tournament it was meant to be. I don't seem to have pencilled in a date for the final yet, but it'll probably be Week 41 or 42, currently scheduled for the Women's Cup and FA Trophy finals respectively, so long as English football doesn't burned itself with too many more postponements between now and then. 

Remember, you don't need to predict who'll win any of the above clashes. Just make your picks for the actual football matches as usual, and figuring out the FPL Cup scores is simply extra work for me. Right, that'll do. A much-changed set of 10 will go up in the opening post soon. I'll explain my reasoning for the alterations there.

8 hours ago, DCW said:

Swagger or Zigglers were obviously duds as I remember none of either run bar the cash in.   

I think WWE officially counts Ziggler's cash-in as his second run. His first involved being awarded the title on a technicality on an edition of SmackDown, then losing it back to Edge by the end of the night.

8 hours ago, ultimo the great said:

Just guessing 2 results seems a bit pointless can't we just have a double week when the peasants are allowed to watch football again?

You and Shy Dad have indeed been left pointless this week, but it's early enough in the season where only a small number of points scored can cause big shifts in the table, so it's still worth doing even though UK football decided to shit the bed on Friday.

Current plan is for a double round only at Easter, plus one mid-season bumper round and another one on the final day as usual. Since you mention it though, I was already thinking before all this kicked off that we could perhaps do with more flexibility on that front.

Some weeks it's tough to piece together 10 decent fixtures, but a lot of the time there are some cracking matches that get left off undeservedly because we're limited to 10 (or effectively 9 when somebody's chosen a pisstake D2D team). I didn't wanna change the rules once the campaign's already started, but now you've said that, I'll consider it.

Anyway, we have a new leader in MVP RULZ, Stinky has moved comfortably into the top half and Vegeta has slipped back below Rory into last place. I hesitated over whether or not to do the wildcard fixture, but went for it in the end and came up with game #1, Marseille v Lille. The bonus points from that are what made the difference for joint top scorer Stinky and Rory, who equal last week's best performance score of 5 points.

Proper round-up including a full link to the table coming Tuesday night, by which time hopefully things are a bit clearer in terms of what's on and what's not next weekend. Since there won't be much else to talk about, I'll explain a bit more about the FPL Cup format then too. 

7 minutes ago, BomberPat said:

I think his bedroom antics have been completely kept out of the newspapers in England, so it's one of those ridiculous things where it's common knowledge everywhere but here.

True. At least there isn't an audio recording of him saying he wishes he could be reincarnated as a tampon... unlike his father. 

2 minutes ago, PunkStep said:

What's this now?

#PrinceOfPegging was trending on Twitter a while back.

If you missed it at the time, sorry to be the one to break it to you now.

EDIT: Keith expertly put it in a more subtle way than I could manage.

I seem to recall Diana's funeral fell during an international break, so no top-flight proper football was affected. She truly was the People's Princess.

3 hours ago, Keith Houchen said:

American patriotism, and indeed most countries around the world, is different to British patriotism as theirs is based on the country and not a person. Their anthem (and most anthems) is about their glorious land whilst Britains is about whoever the person on the throne is. No wonder Land Of My Fathers and Scotland The Brave are favoured in parts of the UK. 

A remarkable proportion of national anthems actually seem to be about obscure 19th-century military skirmishes, the USA's included. 

Anyway, up here I expect North Wales Police have spent the past day dreading the prospect of a coronation for William (already bald and 40 and whose bedroom habits are public knowledge, not universally seen as "lovely" like @BomberPat claimed) in Caernarfon sometime in the next couple of years. It was already quite a tense scene last time they tried that spectacle back in 1969. 

The opening post has been amended to reflect the fact that all British senior football has been postponed this weekend. It is a longstanding UKFF policy that picks for rearranged games are considered null and void unless those matches are completed within a few days of the original date. I've never had any complaints about that either, so we're proceeding on the basis that everyone is fine with that.

Given that the next midweek has another full set of fixtures in UEFA competitions, and that the mourning period will continue in that time, it's safe to assume that they will be played much later in the season. Vegeta's D2D will be rearranged, and somebody else's D2D I'd planned will have to be bumped to a later date because of that too.

This one is still going to go in the record books as Week 6, however, so please do still make picks for the two French matches as Rory has just done. Looks like it's going to be another low-scoring round after all. 

===

On the Fantasy League side of things, I'm not in charge, so I'm just going by what I can glean from this statement. They are also still treating this weekend as a matchweek, meaning everybody will score zero points. Whenever the games are eventually played, it will presumably be a double round. 

If you've got 2 free transfers spare then make sure to use up at least one of them, else it's gone by the wayside. If you've got any chips active, remember to cancel them by 11am tomorrow in case it doesn't happen automatically. Lastly, if you're in any head-to-head leagues then try not to incur a minus score by making too many transfers.

And that's that for the moment. I'll be back with a brief write-up on Sunday night as usual, and in the meantime am keeping an eye on what exactly is going to happen with domestic fixtures originally scheduled for what is now the day of the funeral.

Well well well, quite the double whammy has hit us since I innocently put up another set of 10 yesterday morning. First off, it seems Brighton might have an interim manager in charge for the D2D game as things have moved quickly at Chelsea after the loss in Zagreb on Tuesday night.

Then this afternoon we've been confronted with the prospect of a long period of official mourning about to begin. Do domestic matches still happen under those circumstances (and in this mad season, when the heck else do they play them)? At least it looks like the French games will definitely go ahead, so make the most of your guesses there.

Premier League

Bournemouth w/Vegeta 1-1 Brighton & Hove Albion 
Leicester City 1-2 Aston Villa
Liverpool 3-1 Wolves
Southampton 2-2 Brentford
Manchester City 2-0 Spurs
Arsenal 3-0 Everton 
West Ham United 0-1 Newcastle United 
Crystal Palace 2-1 Manchester United 

Ligue 1
Marseille 1-0 Lille 
Monaco 0-0 Lyon

There's almost no point since scoring was as low as I can remember for a full 10-match card, but the table has been updated anyway. The only movement this time was seph moving back up one place ahead of Shy Dad. It beggars belief, but Facesitter has managed to make himself outright top scorer despite still not having broken his three-pointer duck. Credit where it's due, I'm sure that record will never be beaten.

Scoring would've been even lower had it not been for a generous c-c-c-Combo Breaker(!) of a bet on Fulg... sorry, Folgore from Rory. The D2D match ended goalless and Mr Fice bet on an away win, so everybody who picked either a home win or any sort of draw nabbed a pair of bonus points, which accounts for seven of nine* other participants in this round. Overall, Rory is still in last and I'm at the summit, but by a mere 3 points in each case. We were both among the joint worst performers for the week, albeit not far behind Nicko.

What made the difference for young Fatty was the sole 'wildcard' bonus award this week. The randomiser came up with match #2, Newcastle v Palace, and although it was a controversial stalemate, only Facesitter plumped for a draw and everyone else foresaw a home victory. Like I said on Sunday night, VAR has a lot to answer for. Elsewhere, nobody saw a seven-goal thriller coming at Brentford, while Bournemouth's second-half comeback at The City Ground also produced a dud outcome.

Bayern and City failing to win on the road, Leipzig getting stuffed in Frankfurt, Arsenal's first reverse of the campaign and Dundee United suddenly remembering how to defend all contributed towards the pitiful scores. Just the score draw at Molineux left then, which feels like a fairly ordinary scoreline but even that was a mixed bag of guesses in truth.

*no, nothing to do with Star Trek here

===

Right, I promised the FPL Cup draw on Thursday and didn't deliver, so here we go: 

GROUP A

Fatty Facesitter

RoryFice (title holder)
Stinky Dad
TildeGuy~!
Vegeta

GROUP B

Fog Dude

MVP RULZ
seph
Shy Dad
ultimo the great
 

The draw was seeded, but I've put it into alphabetical order here and then re-randomised it to figure out the actual fixtures. Everybody will face all the other people in their own group, the plus one person from the other group, selected arbitrarily.

The pool phase will begin with the men's international break at the end of the month. The remainder of the group clashes will take place during the Qatar World Cup. The quarter-finals will follow a set pattern (1st vs 4th, 2nd vs 3rd) but then the semis will be drawn at random again. They'll happen in the March international break, which is still happening as Euro 2024 qualifiers will be overdue by then.

The semi-finals will take place on men's FA Cup semi weekend, whilst the final will occur sometime in May.

===

In the meantime, the next card for the main predictions competition will go up in the initial post very soon.

On 9/3/2022 at 11:12 PM, Shy Dad said:

Well I've always wanted a bloody zero in a round of 10.

Honestly it's impossible to predict football right now, everyone's bloody shite bar my Celtic boys.

You needn't worry. The results are at the top of the thread now. I'll round it up properly on Tuesday night, but to be honest, scoring was so freakishly low that there possibly won't be much to say. Can we blame VAR yet? All the 'experts' seem to be doing that right now, so I'm gonna blame VAR too. If I were a Spanish sports newspaper I'd probably come up with an alternative non-VAR table just to see what it'd be like. Alas, nobody's paying me to do that so we'll be stuck with only the ordinary standings this season.

===

So, my Fantasy League score for this round is a decent 62, apparently above the weekly average and inside the top million for the round. It puts me back into an almost respectable position in the general classification and takes me up a notch in most of my leagues, but it isn't so spectacular a haul that it takes me off the bottom in 3 of them. 

Mac Allister was an inspired signing. I was a bit worried when his goal was disallowed today, but then he popped up with two more anyway. He got 14 points, but Toney's hat-trick took him up to 17 and made up for the fact that I don't have the Norwegian goalscoring machine in my squad. Now, if only I'd actually captained one of the buggers! So who did I put the armband on, I hear you ask? Why, Son of course, since he's been good value for that in the past. He had a goal chalked off too, but overall he hasn't performed as well lately as he did in previous seasons.

From the same match, Kane delivered the goods again for a solid 9 points, but Lloris came up against a Mitrović who's still scoring like he's in the Championship, so I should've played Alisson instead, who managed 8 for his clean sheet. Also in the Merseyside derby, Coady earned me 6 points but it could've been even more had his goal been allowed – and then I wouldn't have been bothered about leaving Becker on the bench either.

Groß and Cancelo continue to be fine on 5 and 2 points respectively, whilst Lingard returned to the Forest starting line-up and so got 2 as well... but at the end of the first half it looked like it could be so much more. Jansson returned from injury to play 90 minutes but still only scored a single point, whilst Cash played a mere 26 minutes and was booked, so he got nothing at all and should be first on the chopping block when I next ship players out. The 3 outfielders I left on the bench only scored 4 between them, though, so the real problem is a weak back line across the whole squad rather than selection of the first XI.

No midweek round until mid-October now, so the turnarounds won't be as frantic for 6 weeks and I can have a few days to think about what transfers I want to make.

Thanks to Rory for making his picks nice and early this week so we all know what we're betting on. I've updated the initial post to reflect the fact that the sign-up period is over. I've also added links to the UKFF Fantasy League tables which I hope are working fine. I've been meaning to do that for about 4 weeks since the Fantasy/Predictions merger was sealed, so I'm relieved that I finally got round to it.

Behind the scenes, the draw has been made for the FPL Cup pool stage. I'll put the groups in the Sunday round-up. The first fixtures in that will fall in the men's international break at the end of the month and I'll endeavour to explain the rules thoroughly but clearly at that time.

===

Now for my own weekly predictions: 

Premier League

Brentford 2-2 Leeds United
Newcastle United 3-0 Crystal Palace
Nottingham Forest 2-0 Bournemouth
Wolverhampton Wanderers 0-1 Southampton 
Aston Villa 0-3 Manchester City 
Manchester United 1-2 Arsenal 

Scottish Premiership
Motherwell 0-2 Dundee United

German Bundesliga
Union Berlin 1-0 Bayern Munich 
Eintracht Frankfurt 1-1 RB Leipzig 

Campionato Sammarinese
Libertas 3-1 Folgore w/Rory 

===

Lastly, onto the latest Fantasy League disaster. Looks like my score for the week is 37 points, well below average and comfortably among the bottom 10% of competitors for the round. In all likelihood that's in the lowest 1% for people who give it some serious thought and change their team around every matchday. My cousin was boasting over the weekend about how she just picks the fittest players and flukes it every year. Maybe it's about time I try that 'strategy' instead. 

So, the only plus points this time were Cancelo coming good with 12 points as he scored and City at last kept a clean sheet, then Jesus on 6 points and Kane with 5. I should've put Lloris in goal over Alisson since he got 5 points to Becker's 2 in the end. Jansson didn't play as expected, but nor did Lingard even though there's no sign of injury there. I guess a game where Forest were always on a hiding to nothing was a good time to rest him.

The less said about the remaining players, the better. I've shipped out underperforming Guéhi and McGinn (the latter clearly finding the pressure of captaincy too much at Villa) and brought in bargain-priced Ben White and Alexis Mac Allister – yes, he really does spell it with that spacing – as replacements and hopeful upgrades. In a spate of bold moves, I've benched Jesus and Ward-Prowse for this weekend's matches, captained Son and made Toney vice-captain. We'll know in a few days if that was foolish or a masterstroke... 

My interim score for the midweek Fantasy League matchday is 7 points, with a further 2 to come from the bench. I didn't make a good captaincy pick this time. I'll round things up in full when I make my picks on Thursday night, which will kill two birds with one stone quite tidily. 

===

For the moment though, it's onto various bits of Predictions League housekeeping. The poll in the sign-up thread closes in a few hours, and there are now 6 votes in favour of scores during the World Cup rounds counting in full towards the standings, so that's an unassailable majority among the 10 participants. Speaking of the table, it's just been updated. In a low-scoring Bank Holiday round, seph drops from second spot to fifth, but fellow Robin Rory was there to spare his blushes by being this week's worst performer and sinking to dead last, behind even Vegeta who of course unwittingly skipped a week. 

Stinky and Tilde are now snapping at the heels of the top half following a decent round, whilst ultimo and defending champion MVP RULZ maintained above-average form. It has to be said though, the Austrian scorelines were my saviour. We don't visit there as often as the big 4 mainland European leagues, but it's always interesting when we do. The last match I attended abroad was the Vienna derby and the atmosphere there was spine-tingling. Don't worry, this isn't about to become the Ö-FPL, but if it encourages more people to check out an underrated 'other' Bundesliga, then at least it's been an education for you all.

In a further sign of how the Predictions League must clearly be a fix like it was when I won two seasons ago, the randomiser spat out #10 which I can't recall it doing at all last campaign. That was the Rapid-Graz encounter, where I was the only player to get the right result. And I got the exact score too, so that's two bonus points all to myself. Almost the same goes for the six-goal thriller at the Wörtherseestadion, although a couple of people did correctly think that'd be a draw.

Over in Italy, the stalemate in Florence was only good for the odd one-pointer, whilst Roma getting a draw at Juve caught most pickers out. Closer to home, Scunny's home reverse to Halifax produced a dud outcome, with Oldham's failure to win at York (two divisions below them 4 months earlier) also proving tough to foresee for a majority of players. Wins for Brighton and Spurs and a further score draw at Molineux turned out a tad more fruitful for a lot of participants, but the match at Griffin ParkThe Community Stadium ended up with more of a mixed bag of guesses, so only ultimo got it spot on that it'd be yet another draw.

===

As promised last week, here are the stats for the D2D choices:

• 27 are men's club teams, 1 is a women's club team (somebody had to choose one after Euro 2022 glory, I suppose) and 0 are international teams – this is why the FPL Cup is mainly played during international rounds; 
• 15 play in their country's top flight, 7 in the second tier, 3 in the third division and 3 more in even lower levels of their respective pyramids; 
• 16 are from England, 3 from Germany, 2 each from France and Italy, with one apiece hailing from Canada, Spain, Finland, Romania and... *sigh* San Marino.

If those don't quite add up to as many sides as you were expecting, it's because of slight overlaps concerning one of the most popular teams in this country and a hipsters' favourite from the banks of the River Elbe. Knowing this forum, neither of those should come as much of a surprise.

And with that, I think it's time to attempt to get that pesky Sammarinese pick out of the way with a new set of 10 that should be up in the opening post very soon.

The Predictions League results have just gone into the first post now that we have this afternoon's National League scores. I'll figure out the table and what the random 'wildcard' fixture was by tomorrow night.

===

I've been a bit waylaid by a family gathering over the long weekend, so I didn't get a chance to post about the Fantasy League on here before the latest round of matches. Basically, I had two free transfers saved up so I got rid of both my West Ham players and brought in Ivan Toney and Pascal Groß instead. Even though the Hammers won and kept a clean sheet yesterday and although Toney only earned me that basic 2 points, I didn't have their goalscorer Fornals already so I think that worked out quite well.

I correctly benched Marc Guéhi who scored minus points for the second time this season, and Pontus Jansson, who didn't play at all due to an apparent mild injury, but I should've played John McGinn over either his teammate Matty Cash or the still-underperforming João Cancelo as Man City's defensive woes continued. I picked Alisson over Hugo Lloris, but they both scored 6 so that made no difference either way. Perhaps Lloris was luckier to do so, mind, judging by the highlights from The City Ground.

Speaking of which, it was just 2 points for Jesse Lingard and 3 for Son Heung-Min this week, but a goal and an assist meant Harry Kane bagged 10 points despite that missed penalty. Elsewhere, only one point for popular pick Gabriel Jesus this time, and only a brace for James Ward-Prowse too. Conor Coady's 8 go some way to making up for that, though, and the aforementioned Groß on 11 points thanks to bonuses – but I had the foresight to make him captain, so that doubles up to a whopping 22! 

That leaves me on 58 points, slightly below average and just inside the top 6 million players for the week and top 7.5m overall. I'm actually up slightly in 5 leagues including both the UKFF ones, but I'm staying still in a few others, possibly because I can't go any lower. I don't really want to check at this early stage. Can you really blame me? 

For the coming midweek round, I've not done any transfer activity, but I've made the courageous decision to bench Coady due to a tough-looking fixture at Elland Road, and have equally bravely captained Ward-Prowse. If Jansson remains injured, then I'll get Coady's points anyway. I'm sticking with Alisson in goal and am keeping faith with Cancelo, Lingard and Toney for now. I'm perhaps unwisely leaving Jesus as vice-captain as well.

23 hours ago, Vegeta said:

Shit I honestly thought, I sent them last week, sorry @Fog Dude it's been a bit hectic lately. I'll double check in the future 

Not to worry mate. I know life gets in the way sometimes and like I said, it seemed such an oversight by your standards that I was sure it was just a one-week aberration. Unfortunately I can't give you any points for the last round, but I'm just glad to know you're not giving up this early in the season. 

Anyhow, onto my picks: 

Premier League

Brentford 3-0 Everton
Brighton & Hove Albion 2-1 Leeds United
Wolves 1-1 Newcastle United 
Nottingham Forest 2-2 Spurs 

National League 
Scunthorpe United 2-0 Halifax Town 
York City 1-0 Oldham Athletic

Serie A
Juventus 0-0 Roma 
Fiorentina 3-1 Napoli 

Proper Bundesliga 
Austria Klagenfurt 3-3 Austria Vienna
Rapid Vienna 1-2 Sturm Graz 

The latest table has now been uploaded and it'll go live in the original post in just a jiffy. I've added a line in the middle of the standings because there's already a six-point gap between the top and bottom halves. Still, all the participants placed sixth or lower currently have both their D2D turns left to play, so there are plenty of chances to make up that deficit. Speaking of which, I got mine spectacularly wrong as Celta's one decent player, Iago Aspas, made Real Madrid angry with an equaliser so they then put 3 more goals past the otherwise hapless hosts.

All 8 other players this week gleefully nabbed the bonus points on offer. @Vegeta skipped this round, which is quite out of character. Let's hope that was just a rare one-week aberration because the classification and the FPL Cup format are both a lot neater with an even number of people involved. That leaves him in last place, level with joint lowest scorer Rory. Nicko actually moves off the bottom despite, as he pointed out himself, not actually getting an exact score right yet. Nobody made it into double figures this time, but best performer Seph moves up into second spot, two points behind defending champion and early leader MVP RULZ.

If you're wondering how ultimo got an extra bonus point and I managed to salvage one, well, the randomly selected 'wildcard' fixture was once again match #3, from which nobody got the scoreline spot on for a potential 2 bonus points. We were the only people to bet on a Fulham home win, however, so that's enough to get a rollover bonus each. Away from that five-goal thriller at Craven Cottage and the one-sided affair at Balaidos, an equally comfortable away victory for Barcelona and a narrower success Bilbao mainly proved fruitful.

The huge clash in Portugal produced a margin for the home side that was bigger than pickers were expecting, but it was nonetheless generally good for single-point scoring. Closer to home, a few participants guessed well on a score draw at Goodison and a reverse on the road for Villa, but triumphs for Leeds and Saints and six goals ending up shared evenly at St James's all turned out tougher to foresee.

The next card – a Bank Holiday special – should be up at the top of the thread shortly. The gimmicky complication of Dare 2 Disagree is being given a rest for a week too, but in the following round-up I'll have some stats about the teams that were selected (without giving away too many details, I hope), so be on the lookout for that.

The results for the Predictions League went into the initial post last night. Table update to come tomorrow night, but in the meantime I'd say ol' Facesitter doesn't have too much to worry about. The first few weeks have not been a complete write-off! We'll find out in 10 days if you lot have voted to make the World Cup rounds count or not, mind.

I was going to wait until after tonight's game to do my personal Fantasy League update, but then I remembered Alisson is now the only player involved and I've benched him anyway. Lloris got me 9 points on Saturday so I'm happy with that, and the 3 outfielders I left as subs all only got 1 point each, which means my selection instincts weren't too bad this time. Unfortunately my captain's picks weren't so great. Son didn't set the world alight like he usually does at a Spurs home game, so his 3 points double up to just 6.

Still, that's better than my vice-captain, Cancelo, who played 90 minutes but nonetheless scored a bit fat zero due to City's defensive calamities yesterday. My remaining defenders only got the bog standard 2 points each, as did my West Ham duo of Rice and Antonio. They might've done okay in Europe in midweek, but that matters poop all if they go 3 games without scoring in the league. Elsewhere in midfield, Lingard and Ward-Prowse combined for a total of 10 points, the same as Jesus and Kane's shared total up front.

Overall, then, that makes 43 points for the round and 116 in the general classification so far. A slight uptick on the first two matchdays, but it'll take a couple of well above average weeks to get me closer to where I want to be. That's been enough to move me up slightly in half of my leagues, but that might be a false position if the people who've fallen below me have got lots of Liverpool and Man U players in their first XI. 

I've swapped out Núñez for Jesus in the hope that he'll be my team's new saviour. I've also left Alisson on the bench so I've got nobody involved in the Monday fixture (though if it is called off, I can't see when else they can play it apart from 2 days later or right before the World Cup). Jansson and two Villa players are also among the subs. I've captained Son and made Cancelo his back-up. Bang tidy? Well, after the last couple of weeks, I might be due a turnaround in fortunes, but who knows at this point. 

6 hours ago, Fatty Facesitter said:

My other half is Portuguese and half of the family support Benfica, and the other side support Sporting, so I had to go with them for a big away win against Porto. 

Yeah, that's what I was hinting at that in the pre-fixtures blurb at the top of the thread although I didn't know those details. Must make for an interesting gathering at Christmas!

I enjoyed my time in Lisbon, but my aunt looked into the family tree and found an ancestor from Porto, while my all-too-brief dalliance with a Portuguese lady involved one from Braga, so I guess I prefer the north to the capital region. I even went to the Dragão once for a last 16 Taça tie. FCP won, natch. 

Anyhow, I'm in the habit of making my picks sometime on a Thursday, but since this is my D2D turn, I'm going in a smidgen earlier this week: 

Premier League

Crystal Palace 1-1 Aston Villa
Everton 0-3 Nottingham Forest
Fulham 2-1 Brentford
Leicester City 2-2 Southampton
Leeds United 1-2 Chelsea 
Newcastle United 1-3 Manchester City 

La Liga
Celta Vigo w/me 3-1 Real Madrid 
Athletic Bilbao 1-0 Valencia 
Real Sociedad 0-0 Barcelona

A Primeira Liga
Porto 2-0 Sporting 

When it comes to triple captain and bench boost, I do tend to save them for possible double/treble rounds later in the season, but as Nicko said, sometimes that doesn't work out too well either.

Anyway, this is the post that's meant to be mainly about the Predictions side of things. And on that front, we finally have a table update! Unfortunately our newcomer is indeed in last place, but level on points with Rory. Defending champion MVP RULZ was top scorer on a dozen points, and is already leading by only a single point over ultimo, who got his D2D bet emphatically wrong but it still in a pretty healthy position compared to his usual standards. 

Six pickers rightly bet on either a home win or a draw at the Brentford Community Stadium, while the three who agreed with ultimo now look a tad foolish. Three people also nabbed bonus points from the 'wildcard' fixture, randomly selected on Sunday night as match #3, which was also a 4-0 home victory involving a Manchester club.

It's great to have more eyes on this thread and more discussion thanks to the Fantasy League merger, but it looks like only 10 people are joining in with the Predictions League competition. At least they're all signed up properly with D2D teams allocated now, and it's an easy number to work with when figuring out this year's FPL Cup format too. We've lost one player from last season, regained a former showrunner and added one new participant (albeit someone who's been a familiar name on the forum for yonks). 

Elsewhere, a triumph for Arsenal and draws at the Amex, St Mary's and Stamford Bridge were generally good for one-pointers, but two further score draws in France plus a surprise reverse for West Ham and a stalemate setback for Wolves at Molineux caught a majority of guessers out. 

A new set of 10 will go live in the opening post in a mo. 

The results for the Predictions League matches went into the opening post last night. Full table update to come tomorrow night.

Now that we've had all 10 Fantasy League games done, I can round up how I fared in that. And waiting for the Monday fixture to finish was especially easy this time, because tonight's action was significant to my score. But let's go chronologically first. A solid 4 points from a Villa duo on Saturday lunchtime, then a total of 13 points later in the afternoon from Cancelo and Ward-Prowse, followed by 6 points from a clean sheet for Pontus Jansson in the evening game. 

On Sunday lunchtime, more good news as Jesse Lingard and Michail Antonio net me 8 further points between them. Declan Rice missed a penalty, but I left him on the bench to escape any minus points (or so I thought, until tonight). The second Sunday clash then gets me another 10 thanks to Kane and Son. All of my first XI play and the other subs only score 5 between them, so no harm done there. 

Tonight I was banking on a clean sheet and another goal for Núñez. Instead the former only managed the standard 2 points for 90 minutes, and the latter got himself sent off... and as mentioned on Thursday, he was my captain this time. So that -2 doubles up to -4 and presumably he'll be facing a suspension now, so expect him to be top of the 'most transferred out' player stats come the end of the week.

Overall that leaves me with another dismal total of 39 points, well below average and in the bottom third of performances for the week and the lowest 2 million players after 2 matchdays. That leaves me in the relegation zone in both the UKFF leagues and another forum's league, only avoiding last place in my family league because one of my cousin's mates joined a week late, and already being stone bottom by a wide margin in a league with old school friends. 

Still, there are 36 rounds remaining, so it could all change yet. On we go... 

Premier League

Arsenal 2-0 Leicester City
Brighton & Hove Albion 1-1 Newcastle United
Manchester City 3-0 Bournemouth
Southampton 2-2 Leeds United
Wolves 1-0 Fulham
Brentford 3-1 Manchester United w/ultimo
Nottingham Forest 2-1 West Ham United 
Chelsea 3-2 Spurs

Ligue Un
AS Monaco 0-0 Rennes 
OGC Nice 1-2 RC Strasbourg 

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On the Fantasy League front, I haven't made any transfers but Guéhi is unsurprisingly in the third sub spot following his own goal last time out. I'm a bit shocked so many people are willing to take the -4 hit so early, as I've done that extremely rarely in over a decade of playing Fantasy Leagues. Call me fickle but after last week's exploits, Núñez is now my captain and Ward-Prowse my vice-captain. Declan Rice and Hugo Lloris are swapped out for Pontus Jansson (does that make the formation is 3-4-3 now, Garth? Yes it does) and Alisson respectively. 

On 8/8/2022 at 12:13 AM, Fog Dude said:

Remember when I said I often choose players with the most minutes? I picked Connor Coady as he only missed one match in Wolves' past 3 seasons.

Well guess what? He didn't play on Saturday

and now we know why. Anyhow, these Tuesday night posts are mainly meant for Predictions League stuff, so let's not dwell on it.

===

One last time, here's how it all ended up last season. We'll have up-to-date table links from next week onwards, but for now, you'll just have to use your imagination. All ten people played and the average score was 7.6 points. The returning Seph is the early leader on a dozen points, with ultimo just behind on 11. It was nice of Stinky Dad to score just 3 so that newcomer Fatty Facesitter doesn't feel too unwelcome as he opens on a mere 4-point haul. The 'wildcard' fixture was, appropriately, match #1 and only Vegeta thought Bournemouth would beat Villa by 2 goals without reply, so he nabs 2 bonuses and nobody else gets any.

Elsewhere, wins for much-fancied moneybags Newcastle, Spurs, Chelsea and Man City generally proved fruitful. Reverses for troubled giants Wolves and Man United caught a fair few participants out, whilst a score draw at the King Power between two sides tipped to struggle turned into more of a mixed bag of guesses. Most players rightly thought there'd be 2 home wins in Germany, even if getting both scorelines spot on was harder to come by. Union Berlin have played in Europe in recent seasons, while Hertha only stayed up after winning the Relegation play-off last year, so a Union victory was to be expected. All that looked very unlikely when I first visited the German capital 9 years ago.

But this isn't supposed to be a place to brag about past travels so we need to move onto the next round now. The card for week 2 should be up in the original post in just a tick.

The match results are now in the opening post but I'll save the full Predictions League round-up for its traditional Tuesday night slot. And of course, since it's Week 1, we don't get a table update yet anyway.

Keep in mind that there are 4 full EPL midweek matchday which the Predictions League doesn't cover but which do count as separate Fantasy League rounds, 2 of which are frontloaded this season due to the World Cup so I thought I'd get that out of the way nice and early.

Equally, there are 10 weekends with no EPL games (and therefore no Fantasy League points to score) where we will be carrying on with the Predictions League regardless. Half of those are again because of the World Cup, and there's a poll in the sign-up thread to decide whether those weeks will count properly towards the standings or just be bonus rounds, in case you missed it.

===

Away from housekeeping, a poor start for me in the Fantasy PL. Just 34 points, which is enough to put me among the bottom million players. Marc Guéhi earned minus points thanks to that own goal on Friday night, neither of my keepers kept a clean sheet against much inferior opposition, and six more players on 1 or 2 points each – one of whom was the captained Harry Kane – hardly set the world alight. Remember when I said I often choose players with the most minutes? I picked Connor Coady as he only missed one match in Wolves' past 3 seasons.

Well guess what? He didn't play on Saturday, and the automatic swap-in only earned a single point. I'd left James Ward-Prowse in the second sub position, and although I correctly predicted his team would be on the wrong end of a thumping, he did get his customary goal so I should've started him. The only saving graces were Son, Cancelo and the last-minute addition of Darwin Núñez after his Community Shield performance. Better luck next weekend I guess... 

Great to have you on board, @Fatty Facesitter! 

I'm already not sure what the thinking was behind my Fantasy League team that I selected two weeks ago, but I almost ended up with Kasper Schmeichel in my squad, and he's of course in Ligue 1 now. I've made sure my squad costs dead on the £100m budget having lapsed a little on that front in recent campaigns. I generally look for players that all got plenty of minutes last season, because rotation by real-life managers and first XI players getting less than 60 minutes of action and therefore scoring only 1 point have been a scourge of recent years. 

I backloaded as many chips as I possibly could last time, so I came into form right at the end of the season. And since my mini-leagues' automated Cup competitions tended to start in Week 34 or 35 and I was scoring like mad in those last few rounds, I ended up winning two of them outright. In the main game I just about scraped over the 2,000 point mark on the final day, so I'm hoping to do a little better this time. Good luck, everyone, and enjoy the season!